


Vanilla Bean Meltdown

by violetclarity



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baking, Birthdays, F/F, Fluff, Friendship, Gift Fic, Humor, Minor Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, chocolate cake, inexperienced bakers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 12:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21446296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetclarity/pseuds/violetclarity
Summary: Pansy’s baking a cake. Draco’s supposed to be helping. Harry’sactuallyhelping, thank Merlin.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson, Pansy Parkinson/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 58





	Vanilla Bean Meltdown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whiskyandwildflowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskyandwildflowers/gifts).

> Happy birthday, Hillary! I hope you enjoy this small token of my affection (it’s only a fraction of what you deserve!). Thanks for being a wonderful friend, always listening to my ideas (and telling me when I’ve gone too far), sharing cat stories, and being my companion on the island of sanity <3 much love and I hope there are wonderful things coming your way this year!
> 
> Huge thank-you to **frnklymrshnkly** for the last-minute beta-read! The cake recipe I referenced can be found here: https://www.thekitchn.com/easy-chocolate-sponge-257179

“How hard can it be?” Pansy asked, looking at the array of ingredients on her kitchen counter. Clutched in her hands was the chocolate cake and ganache frosting recipe the librarian had kindly helped her photocopy. Pansy was sweating, so the paper had gotten a bit damp.

“Your owl said, and I quote, that you needed help because you couldn’t do this alone,” Draco said wryly from where he was seated at the kitchen table.

“I asked you to come over for moral support, not to doubt my baking skills,” Pansy said, turning to face Draco. “Plenty of people bake cakes every day. I can do this.”

“It’s just that you were never very good at Potions,” Draco reminded her.

“Well, that’s why I have you, isn’t it? You always got Os in Potions.”

“But I don’t think baking is very much like Potions.”

Pansy pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut and reminding herself that she couldn’t murder Draco. He was her best friend, and also the only person she knew who owned a table-top scale. She needed him.

“I can do this,” she said again, putting the recipe down on the counter and smoothing it flat. “This is fine.”

“I don’t know why you need to bake it yourself,” Draco said. “Can’t you pick her up some tea cakes from the patisserie on Vertik? It’s the thought that counts, right?”

“The thought of me _making it myself_, Draco, not the fact that I got her something for her birthday at all.”

“Her mother will probably have baked her a cake anyway. Isn’t that one of her things? I don’t see why–”

“Can you just – shut up, for a second?” Pansy snapped. Draco obligingly did, although the expression on his face said he was not happy about it. “Remember the time I sat outside Quality Quidditch Supplies with you from five in the morning so you could get Potter that limited edition Nimbus?”

Draco’s expression softened a miniscule amount. “Yes.”

“Can we call this a trade-in on that day?”

Draco sighed, slumping in his chair and then pulling himself to his feet. They both knew there were many other moments that Pansy could have cited from their friendship – that in the cosmic scheme of things, he owed her – which made it all the more annoying that he’d been so dramatic about it to begin with. But then again, that was Draco.

Coming to stand beside her, he tugged the recipe over, reading it with a serious expression. “Weasley likes chocolate, then?”

“Chocolate and strawberries,” Pansy said. “I’m going to chop them up and put them in the icing.”

“Mmm,” Draco said, picking up the recipe to squint at it. “Well, it says we have to start by combining the dry ingredients.”

“The dry ingredients?” Pansy said, looking over the array on her counter. Most of the supplies had been freshly purchased specifically for this endeavour, Pansy not being a frequent baker, or user of her kitchen at all.

She grabbed the salt, flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder.

“No, not the cocoa powder,” Draco said.

“But it’s dry!”

“It says we do that later.”

Pansy rolled her eyes, putting it back.

“Not the sugar either,” Draco interrupted, as she went to grab that.

“These instructions are misleading,” Pansy grumbled. Draco showed her how to put the bowl on the scale and adjust it back to zero, then read out the amounts as she measured.

Dry ingredients measured and whisked, Pansy felt bolstered. That hadn’t been that hard, actually. And Draco was here to help her. Maybe baking Ginny a birthday cake wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d feared.

“Alright,” Draco said, frowning at the recipe. “Now we combine the cocoa, the vanilla, and the water.”

Pansy picked up the vanilla beans she’d bought, opening the jar and pulling one out. It was firm and leathery – not at all something that would dissolve into water.

“Do we need to chop up the vanilla first?”

“Chop it up?” Draco looked at the recipe again. “It doesn’t say anything about that.”

“I don’t think this is going to combine well with water,” Pansy said, showing him the bean.

“What is that?” Draco grabbed the jar from her.

“It’s vanilla! The girl at the shop told me it was the best kind for baking.”

“Pans, this is a vanilla bean. The recipe calls for vanilla _extract_.”

“Fuck,” Pansy said, grabbing the recipe from Draco. He was right; it did specify vanilla extract – Pansy just hadn’t been paying attention. “Can we still use the bean?”

“I don’t know,” Draco said. “It seems like the vanilla extract would be liquid.”

“Maybe we can chop it up?” Pansy asked. “Or...dissolve it in something?”

Draco squeezed the vanilla bean. “I don’t think this is going to dissolve.”

“Fuck,” Pansy groaned again, glancing at the clock. “It’s too late to go back out, and Ginny’s birthday is tomorrow.”

“It’s fine,” Draco said, dropping the vanilla bean on the counter and grabbing the recipe back from Pansy. “Maybe it’s not even necessary? I mean, it’s a _chocolate_ cake, why would you put vanilla in chocolate?”

“I should have read the recipe closer.”

“Let’s just skip this step and come back to it, alright? It says we need to combine the butter and sugar using the creaming method.” Draco frowned. “Do you have a stand mixer?”

“A stand what?”

“A mixer.”

“What’s a mixer?”

“Presumably it mixes things,” Draco said dryly.

“I don’t have a mixer. Why would I have a mixer?” Pansy asked.

“I guess we could also use a mixing spell,” Draco said. “Because this is a Muggle recipe, right? So a mixing spell would do the same thing.”

Pansy crossed her arms. “And do you know a mixing spell, Draco?”

“Obviously,” Draco said. “After all, I did get straight Os in Potions.”

As it turned out, the mixing spell Draco knew – designed to stir a poition very slowly and consistently with a lightweight rod to avoid excess agitation – did not work for the still-mostly-hard butter and sugar they were using for the cake. After the third time the mixing spoon went flying across Pansy’s kitchen, she went in search of a book of household charms her mother had given her when she graduated from Hogwarts. She finally found it being used to prop up the wobbly dresser in her bedroom.

With the correct spell and a Transfigured utensil, the butter and sugar came together and became pale and fluffy, just like the recipe had said they would.

“Next up is the eggs,” Draco said. He had sat himself on the far end of the kitchen counter, and was doing more instructing and correcting than helping, but Pansy was still glad to have him there. And, after all, she did want to do it herself.

“Eggs.” Pansy grabbed the carton, pulling it towards her.

“Alright, it says we need to add them in one at a time with a teaspoon of flour to avoid splitting the batter.”

“Splitting the batter? What does _that_ mean?”

“I don’t know.” Draco frowned. “But it says that if we do split the batter, the cake will still be fine.”

“Then why do we need to avoid it?”

“I’m just reading you the recipe!”

“I don’t want to give Ginny a cake with split batter,” Pansy said.

“You don’t even know what it means for the batter to split.”

“Well they’re telling us how not to have it happen, so it can’t be good!”

Draco sighed. “Pansy, I think we need to call in back-up.”

“No, I can do this!” Pansy said. “I don’t need any help. If the recipe says not to worry about splitting the batter, then I won’t worry.” She opened the eggs, picking one up. “I just crack it on the side of the bowl, then?”

“Or the edge of the counter. Harry does it that way.”

Pansy nodded, tapping the egg once on the corner of the counter. Nothing happened. She did it again, and then a third time harder, and smashed the egg all over the floor.

“Shit!”

Draco was laughing at her, clutching his stomach and doubled over. “Not that hard next time, Pans!”

“Stop laughing and cast a _Scourgify,_” Pansy snapped.

Once she got the hang of it, the eggs were easily incorporated. And the batter hadn’t split – at least, they didn’t think so.

But then it was time to add the cocoa.

“Any spells in your book about what to do with the vanilla bean?” Draco asked, examining the jar again. 

“No,” Pansy said morosely, flipping through the pages. “Nothing.” She sighed. “We could leave it out?”

“But it might mess up the whole cake, and then we’d have to start over,” Draco said. He had a point – it was already past ten, and they hadn’t even put the thing in the oven. “I feel like there’s vanilla extract in a lot of baked things. It must be important.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know.” Draco shook his head. “Pansy, just let me call Harry. He’s good at all this stuff. He’ll be able to tell us what to do with the bean.”

Pansy sighed in defeat. “Fine.”

Potter, it turned out, was the kind of person who already owned vanilla extract. When Pansy explained the problem, he happily Flooed to his flat to pick it up, returning a few minutes later with a small brown bottle that Pansy recognized – it had been on the same shelf as the vanilla beans she’d bought, and much cheaper.

“You have to cut open the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds,” Potter explained, deftly measuring the extract and whisking in the cocoa powder. “It is really good for baking, but since this recipe calls for vanilla extract, it’s probably best to stick with that.”

“Oh, that’s a technique we use in potion-making!” Draco said.

“And yet you had no idea what I should do with it before your boyfriend got here,” Pansy muttered. Draco threw a tea-towel at her head.

“This is a complicated recipe,” Potter commented, once the cakes were in the oven and he was helping Pansy set up a double-boiler to make the ganache. “Why did you pick this one, if you aren’t much of a baker?”

Draco snorted. “Try not a baker at all,” he said.

“As if _you_ knew what to do,” Pansy snarked. Draco rolled his eyes and went back to dicing strawberries, a task Potter had assigned him because of his experience with potions. Potter was still watching her, waiting for a response, and Pansy looked down, suddenly very interested in whether or not the water had begun to boil. “The lady at the library said this was the best chocolate cake recipe she knew of,” she explained. “I wanted to make Ginny the best.”

Potter smiled, soft and understanding in a way that made Pansy want to push him away – with either a harsh word or a literal push, she wasn’t fussy – but she forced down the instinct, reminding herself that he was helping her. “I’m sure Ginny’s going to love it,” Potter said.

“She better,” Pansy muttered.

She needn’t have worried. When Ginny arrived at her flat the next night, she exclaimed over the cake, beautifully frosted and with a ring of half-strawberries around the edge. She grinned when Pansy cut into the cake to reveal the strawberries and ganache layered inside, and when she tasted it, she moaned.

“Pansy, this is delicious!” Ginny took another bite, licking the extra frosting off of her fork. Pansy’s heart thumped in her chest. “Did you make this yourself?”

Pansy nodded. “Yes. Well, I had some help.”

Ginny leaned in to give Pansy a chocolate-flavored kiss. “It’s amazing.”

“I just wanted to do something special for you,” Pansy explained, twining their fingers together. 

Ginny smiled. “You did.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @violetclarity.


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